Some of this is just superstition: “money attracts money”. So you should keep a couple of $100 bills around the house… more common in Russia than the USA as far as I can tell.
I know one guy who hid his money not in the house, but in an old rat poison can in the old chicken coop.
People’s experiences, and stories they hear about, heavily influence what they think is reasonable. People who lived through FDR’s “bank holiday” and his gold confiscation were, as a group, less inclined to trust either banks or the government than Millennials are, for example.
That I know of, a friend didn’t have cash hidden in the house, but she once told me that if said house ever gets torn down the workers will find at least a dozen birthday and Xmas presents that were hidden in “safe places” where the recipients wouldn’t be able to find them early…
Had a college friend (road trip buddy) who died in his 20s. He was living with his parents and didn’t have many possessions, but his family had to pick up his dirty clothes from his messy room.
This kid, who was ALWAYS broke (and who we’d always “loan” a couple of bucks to if we stopped at Burger Chef), had his pockets full of money.
His dad couldn’t stop laughing as he told us: “We started in on the compost pile that was his bedroom floor, and I picked up a pair of his jeans by the legs… and a huge pile of coins hit the floor. My wife saw this, so she picked up another pair. Ka-ching! Then a hoodie disgorged a wad of bills. So we went through all his pants and shorts and vests and his winter coats and found crumpled bills in almost every pocket, even the hidden zippered pockets inside. By the time we were done, it was hundreds of dollars.”
.
It was weeks later that I thought we should have said “Well, Mr. Boyd, we have a ledger detailing the number of Big Chef Burgers for which your son borrowed money from us…”
The kid wasn’t scamming us, he was so oblivious, I’m sure he accepted our largess without ever actually checking the depths of his pockets.
I have about $700 in cash from Facebook Marketplace type sales that i just hang onto rather than deposit. The stuff I sell/sold is more to make space than because I needed the cash, so I can afford to save the cash for a crisis event.
When my “was a legitimate train hopping hobo during the Depression” era grandfather died, my mother and aunt found paper lunch bags of cash hidden around the house. He also had bank accounts so this wasn’t his life savings but he was definitely hedging his bets.
mom used to do that… and around June we’d find one or two things that were supposed to be for Xmas
one year mom found them before we did so she saved them for next Christmas lol
A thread I started a few years ago after mom died.
When my paternal grandmother died, my father was her executor. He found piles of money all over the place. She grew up poor, went through the Depression, and was always super-frugal. One of the oddest places Daddy found money was under the floormat of her car. That stash was something like $800!
When Momma died, I guess Daddy had watched her tuck away money. He’d go on gambling trips to Vegas, and most were successful. Some trips were very successful. I’m sure he’d hand her a big wad of cash when he’d come home. Instead of putting it in her wallet or her purse, she’d place it in a nearby drawer “for now.” I think her accumulations added up to a couple thousand.
I’m turning 70 in December (dammit!), and I feel no need to hide money.
I bank it.
~VOW
I was clearing out a bookcase, packing up books to give to a charity sale, and found a book with $1,100 in it. It would have been money from racecourse winnings, I have no other reason to have a pile of cash around, in nice new 100s. It must have been there for years as I couldn’t recollect hiding it.
Many years before that, I recall getting ready to go out on an unseasonably cold night, putting on my jacket and, on sticking my hand in the pocket, discovering a huge chunk of blonde Lebanese hash wrapped in foil. It wouldn’t have been hidden, just left there at a time when I had plenty of recreational substances around.
Do the dollar bills I’ve used as bookmarks count?
Hubs was raised by parents who stashed money around their home because they didn’t trust banks. He found thousands when they died and I am fairly sure the guy who bought the place found a nice windfall as well.
About 15 years ago, the IRS thought we owed them money (we didn’t) and they emptied our bank accounts to the tune of almost 15 grand. Besides the stress of dealing with the IRS, we weren’t able to pay our bills and got into further debt with the interest and penalties and overdraft charges.
When we finally got our money back, just what was taken, no extra to cover our expenses due to their mistake…the check was cashed and the money went into our fire proof gun safe.
While we do keep most of our money in the bank, there is 20 grand in hundreds, fifties and twenties in our gun safe. We would probably be just fine with just two or three grand because we don’t have car or mortgage payments anymore, but hubs wants 20 grand in the safe for his peace of mind and that really isn’t a hill I feel is worth dying over.
Other stashed money: there is a jar in the living room where we toss our change, judging by the level, there is about a hundred dollars there. I have a twenty in my wallet behind my drivers license (so I won’t spend it) and another twenty in my car owner’s manual which lives in the glove compartment.
I used to work at a library and dollar bill bookmarks funded many a staff pizza party.
My parents had a hiding place for many years, which they had to change when my brother acquired a few rather questionable, dodgy friends in his late teen years. I have no idea what they do now.
I do keep some cash on hand, in a hiding place, and also have a jar of quarters, mainly for the coin-operated washers and dryers in my apartment building.
A while back, I almost didn’t buy a bag of sewing patterns (I sell the uncut ones on Amazon) but decided to do so anyway, and sure was glad I did, because in the process of inspecting said patterns, found more than $80 in crisp bills from 1984. Had I found that money at the sale, I would have turned it in to the people running it, but since I found it after I got home, it was MINE.
As for money being destroyed in a fire or other disaster, the Federal Reserve has a department of people who can figure out, to a point, what people might have stashed away. This has also proven helpful when people have dug up cans or bags of money.
I have found having enough cash for a couple of tanks of gas and maybe a week’s worth of groceries on hand is wise. Anything more than that goes in the bank. I do however have an old Illy coffee can that is mostly filled with loose change but it is almost exclusively pennies, nickles, and dimes. Quarters and dollars tend to live in my desk at work for the rare time that I have the urge to visit the vending machine. So that coffee can has maybe $20 in it. I should take it to a Coinstar but it has been growing for the last 5 or 6 years and that stupid can of pennies is just a permanent part of my garage decor at this point.
Maybe having a safe with many month’s worth of cash and several hundred dollars worth of rolled coins would be a good idea. I doubt it though so it’s never been something I’ve been inclined to do. I think if I was the type to squirrel away cash It would be someplace… not obvious, like in the can of rat poison in an old shed like someone upthread noted.
I do know someone who uses one of those big 5 gallon water jugs that go on office water coolers as a coin bank. He says that when full of random pocket change it holds between $700 and $800. I have no idea how often he fills it. He’s a CPA so presumably understands the value of compound interest, but he still had the change jug…
Tangentially related: covid-19 and the resulting social unpleasantness taught me that having enough food, medication, and household supplies (household cleaners, TP, sanitary products, pet food) to last at least a month without leaving the house is just as important – if not more important – than having cash on hand. I’m afraid that I’m slowly becoming one of those depression baby-type hoarders. Anything that was hard to get during the pandemic or was constantly in short supply I’ve stocked up on.
This. We have some cash on hand, including 100 CHF in my wallet (emergency money) plus whatever’s usually in my wallet. We probably have 600-700 CHF in the house at any time.
We also have UHT milk, lots of TP, and at least 4 weeks of prescription medications. There are 5 grocery stores within a 20 minute walking distance, plus a farm stand, which has eggs and some other foodstuffs, just not milk. There are several dairy farms nearby, plus one of the central dairy processors is not far away. For this winter we will make sure to stock up on candles and other alternative light sources. 
We also have a gas grill which we can use for cooking, but not for heat.
Supposedly one of my in-laws did have money buried, but used most of it before they passed. If there’s still something still buried, no one knows where it is. My grandmother left money in books, pockets and purses, but this was just random, nothing major. I probably should ask my parents if they have anything hidden at their house, besides what’s in the safe.
Reminds me of the Alan Parsons Project song Pyramania, which contains this verse:
I’ve been told someone in the know
Can be sure that his luck is as good as gold,
Money in the bank and you don’t even pay for it if you fold
A dollar in the shape of the pyramid that’s printed on the back.
A one-dollar note folds very nicely into a pyramid, and contains the printed pyramid nearly centered on one face. Apparently some people (including a friend of mine) believe it attracts wealth. 
As others said, it’s possible that due to a power outage, natural disaster or computer glitch, the ATMs may be unavailable, perhaps for an extended time. So like some others, I keep $1-2,000 in my apartment, though not hidden. It’s in a fireproof safe along with my passport and other important papers. (Though at one point, it was in the form of hundred-dollar bills but then I thought about how many stores don’t normally accept those, so I converted it to twenty-dollar bills. Bulkier but at least widely accepted.)
Apparently some prescription bottles are the right diameter to hold dimes or quarters. When my mom died, having outlived two husbands who removed silver dimes and quarters from their change, we had to watch for Rx bottles, small boxes, etc. with silver change in it.
There was also a stash in the bible study box, so that there’d be money for tithing. There were gold and silver coins bought for investment that were in filing cabinets.
One grandmother-in-law tended to stash money and bond certificates in paperbacks. The certificates were made out to specific grandchildren. Some were even in her desk.
Before I left for vacation I moved the coin rolls and wallet with cc and passwords from a desk to the blanket drawer. Then I realized drawers would get dumped first. So then it was moved to the pocket of an old jacket at the back of the closet. Then I’d be sure to forget it and thrift the jacket first. So I just put it back in the desk. 
My FIL hid his handgun under a stack of underwear inside a fancy chamber pot.
I keep three hundred in 10’s and 20’s for emergency cash.
$60 in the car for a breakdown or fillup. Really should increase it to $100. Things are getting more expensive.